The Widow

by Fiona Barton

  Two hours later, Kate was polishing: reading, re-reading, searching for repeated adjectives, changing a word here and there, trying to look at the intro with fresh eyes. She had about five minutes before Terry would start screaming for copy and should be pushing the Send button, but she didn’t want to let go of the story. She was fannying around when she suddenly realized she hadn’t discussed Day Two with Mick and lifted her phone to check with him.

  He sounded very laid back when he picked up – probably was laid back on his bed, watching an adult movie on the paid channel. ‘Mick, sorry, but the desk says they are running the story over two days. Just wanted to check you’re happy with what you’ve got.’

  He wasn’t. ‘Let’s get Jean to do another set of pictures,’ he suggested. Kate rang her room, preparing a bright ‘Just need another couple of photos, Jean. Won’t take a minute,’ but the phone rang out. Kate could hear it trilling through the wall of her room.

  ‘Come on, Jean, pick up,’ she muttered. She slipped her feet into her shoes and padded next door to knock. ‘Jean!’ she said to the door, her mouth almost touching the surface. Mick emerged from his room with a camera in his hand. ‘She’s not answering. What the hell is she doing?’ Kate said, banging on the door again.

  ‘Calm down. Maybe she’s in the spa? She loved that massage,’ Mick said.

  Kate almost ran to the lift, then turned back and raced down the corridor to her room. She had to send the story first. ‘That’ll keep the grown-ups busy while we find her,’ she shouted back to Mick.

  The beautician in the ylang-ylang-scented spa could not help. She bobbed her tightly bunned head apologetically as she ran her finger over the screen in front of her, mouthing the names. No booking.

  The journalists retreated and regrouped. Mick took the grounds and Kate kept trying Jean’s mobile phone, the sense of panic curdling in her stomach as she catastrophized; another paper must have found her and squirrelled her away right under Kate’s nose. What would she tell the desk? How would she tell them?

  Twenty minutes later, the pair were standing in the hotel lobby, gazing out of the glass doors, desperately planning their next move, when the second receptionist returned from her coffee break and piped up from behind her desk, ‘Are you looking for your friend?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kate croaked. ‘Have you seen her?’

  ‘She checked out a couple of hours ago – nearer three hours, really. I called a taxi for her to go to the station.’

  Kate’s phone rang. ‘It’s the desk,’ she said to Mick.

  Mick made a face and decided to go outside for a cigarette.

  ‘Hello, Terry,’ she said, sounding manic as she over-compensated. ‘No, everything’s fine … Well, sort of. Look, we’ve got a slight problem. Jean’s gone walkabouts. She left while I was writing. Pretty sure she has gone home but we’re on our way … I know … I know … I’m sorry. Call you as soon as I know more … How’s the copy?’

  Chapter 43

  Friday, 11 June 2010

  The Widow

  WHEN I GET HOME, the place feels small and dingy after all those deep carpets and chandeliers. I walk through it in silence, opening the doors and switching on the lights. I tell myself I’m going to sell this house as soon as I can. Glen is everywhere, like a faint smell. I don’t go in the spare room. It’s empty – we threw away what the police hadn’t taken. ‘Fresh start,’ Glen said.

  When I come back to the hall I can hear a buzzing noise and I can’t work out what it is for a minute. It’s my mobile. I must’ve put it on Silent earlier and I rummage in my bag for it. The bloody thing is right at the bottom and I have to tip everything out on the carpet to find it. I’ve got dozens of missed calls. All from Kate. I wait for the buzzing to stop, then I take a breath and call back. Kate answers almost before it can ring.

  ‘Jean, where are you?’ she says. She sounds terrible. Her voice is all squeaky and tight.

  ‘At home, Kate,’ I say. ‘I got a train and came home. I thought you’d finished with me and I wanted to get back. Sorry. Shouldn’t I have come home?’

  ‘I’m on my way over. Don’t go out of the house. We’ll be there in about forty minutes. Just stay put until I get there,’ she tells me. ‘Please,’ she adds as an afterthought.

  I put the kettle on and make a cup of tea while I wait. What can she possibly want from me now? We’ve talked for two days and I’ve had hundreds of photos taken. She’s got her story. The widow has spoken.

  This is taking forever and I’m getting a bit fed up, waiting. I want to go to the shops and get some food for the week. We’re out of almost everything. I’m out of almost everything

  When the door is finally knocked, I jump up and open it. It isn’t Kate. It’s the man from the telly. ‘Oh, Mrs Taylor, I’m so glad to catch you in,’ he says, all excited. I wonder who tipped him off that I’m home. I look across to Mrs Grange and see a movement at the window.

  ‘Can I talk to you for a moment?’ the telly man says and makes as if he’s going to come in. Then I see Kate coming up the path, storming up to us all red in the face, and I say nothing, just wait for the row.

  ‘Hello, Jean,’ she says, pushing past Mr Telly and taking me indoors with her. Poor bloke doesn’t know what’s hit him. ‘Mrs Taylor! Jean!’ he tries as the door closes. Kate and I stand in the hall and look at each other. I start to explain that I thought it was her at the door, but she interrupts, talks right over me.

  ‘Jean, you signed a contract with us. You agreed to cooperate fully and you’re putting the whole deal at risk by your behaviour. What were you thinking of, sneaking off like that?’

  I can’t believe she’s talking to me like this. How dare she tell me off like some kid, in my own home? Something gives inside me and I can feel myself going red – can’t help myself. Could never be a poker player, Glen used to say.

  ‘If you’re going to get nasty, you can go right now,’ I say, a bit too loudly. It bounces off the walls and I bet Mr Telly can hear. ‘I’ll come and go as I like and no one is going to tell me any different. I’ve given you your bloody interview, done all Mick’s pictures. I’ve done everything you asked. It’s all done. You don’t own me just because I signed a bit of paper.’

  Kate looks at me like I’ve slapped her. Little Jeanie has stood up for herself. Bit of a shock, clearly.

  ‘Jean, I’m sorry if I was a bit heavy with you, but I was so worried when you disappeared like that. Look, come back to the hotel for one more night, until the story’s in the paper. You’re going to have the world and his wife on the doorstep when it comes out.’

  ‘You told me giving you the interview would stop that happening,’ I say. ‘I’m staying here.’ And I turn and go back into the kitchen.

  She follows me, all quiet now. Thinking. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘I’ll stay here with you.’

  It’s the last thing I need, but she looks so miserable I agree. ‘Just tonight and then you can go. I need time on my own,’ I say.

  I go and sit in the loo while she makes phone calls to Mick and her boss. I can hear every word. ‘No one else’s got her. No, she hasn’t spoken to anyone else, but she won’t come back to the hotel, Terry,’ she says. ‘I have tried. For God’s sake, of course I’ve tried to persuade her, but she won’t. She doesn’t want another massage, Terry. She wants to be at home. Short of kidnapping her, I’m completely stuck. No, that’s not an option. Look, it’ll be OK. I’ll make sure nobody gets to her.’

  There is a pause and I imagine Terry raging down the phone to her. She says she’s not afraid of him – says he’s a bit of a pussycat really, but I don’t believe her. I see her put her fist against the knot in her stomach when he’s carrying on at her on the phone, rocking slightly. That tight smile says it all. ‘How’s the copy?’ she says to change the subject. She means the story. I’m beginning to learn the language. I go upstairs for a bit of peace.

  Later, she comes and taps on my bedroom door. ‘Jean, I’m making a cup of tea. Do you want one?
’

  We’re back to square one. Funny how things go in circles. I tell her there’s no milk and she offers to get some shopping brought round. ‘Shall we make a list?’ she says through the door, and I go and sit in the living room with her while she writes down what we need.

  ‘What do you fancy for dinner tonight?’ she asks and I want to laugh.

  How can we be discussing whether to have fish fingers or chicken curry, as though this is a normal home? ‘I don’t mind, you choose,’ I say. ‘I’m not really hungry.’ She says OK and puts bread and butter and tea and coffee and washing-up liquid and a bottle of wine on the list.

  ‘I’ll send Mick to get it and bring it round the back,’ she says and reaches for her phone.

  She reads it out to him and he seems to be taking it down really slowly so she has to repeat everything twice. She’s getting twitchy by the end and breathes deeply when she puts the phone down. ‘Men!’ she says and forces a laugh. ‘Why are they so bloody hopeless?’

  I tell her that Glen never went shopping on his own, not even with a list. ‘He hated it and he always bought the wrong things. He couldn’t be bothered to read the labels so he’d come home with diabetic jam or decaf coffee by mistake. He’d only buy half the ingredients for a recipe and then get bored. He’d forget the tins of tomatoes for a spag bol or the meat for a casserole. Maybe he did it on purpose so I wouldn’t ask him again.’

  ‘My old man’s the same. It’s just a chore,’ Kate adds, kicking off her shoes and wriggling her toes as if she lives here. ‘Ironic that Glen was shopping when the accident happened.’ She calls him Glen now. It was always ‘your husband’ at the beginning, but she feels she knows him now. Knows him enough to talk about him like this. She doesn’t.

  ‘It was unusual for him to come shopping with me,’ I say. ‘He never came with me before all this happened – he used to do football training with the pub team while I did the big shop. After he was arrested he went with me for a bit so I wouldn’t have to face people on my own. He did it to protect me, he said.’

  But after a while he stopped coming with me because people stopped saying things. I don’t think they stopped thinking ‘Child Murderer’, but accusing us lost its novelty and excitement, I suppose.

  ‘The day he died, he insisted on coming. Strange, really.’

  ‘Why did he?’ Kate asks.

  ‘I think he might have wanted to keep an eye on me,’ I say.

  ‘Why? Were you planning to do a disappearing act in Sainsbury’s?’

  I shrug. ‘Things were a bit tense that week,’ I say.

  ‘Tense doesn’t really do it justice. The air felt thick with it and I couldn’t breathe properly. I sat outside the kitchen door on a stool to try and find some relief, but nothing helped. I was suffocating in my thoughts. All the time I was fighting them back. Closing my eyes so I wouldn’t see them. Turning up the radio so I wouldn’t hear them, but they were there, just out of reach, waiting for me to weaken.

  The Monday before he died, he brought me a cup of tea in bed. He did that sometimes. He sat on the bed and looked at me. I was still half asleep, sorting out the pillows behind me and trying to get comfortable to have my tea.

  ‘Jean,’ he said and his voice sounded flat. Dead. ‘I’m not well.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked. ‘Is it one of those headaches? I’ve got those really strong painkillers in the cupboard in the bathroom.’

  He shakes his head. ‘No, not headaches. I just feel so tired. I can’t sleep.’

  I know. I’ve felt him tossing and turning beside me and heard him getting up in the middle of the night.

  He looks tired. Old, really. His skin looks greyish and there are dark shadows under his eyes. Poor Glen.

  ‘Perhaps you should go to the doctor’s,’ I suggest, but he shakes his head again and turns it away to look at the door.

  ‘I keep seeing her when I shut my eyes,’ he says.

  ‘Who?’ I say, but I know full well who he means. Bella.

  Chapter 44

  Monday, 1 February 2010

  The Detective

  WHILE FRY AND his team worked the data, Sparkes went back to the van. Taylor had regular routes to the South Coast and Sparkes started to match other dates and times on the delivery firm’s records with Taylor’s statements, traffic reports and motorway cameras. It was the second time through and should have been tedious, but he had new energy now.

  He’d made official requests to the Met, Surrey, Sussex and Kent forces, which controlled the patchwork of motorways and roads potentially used by his suspect, and each had promised to look again for Taylor’s number plate on the dates around the kidnap. Now he had to wait.

  But when the first call came, it was not about Taylor.

  It was from one of his own force’s motorway patrol cars. ‘DI Sparkes? Sorry to disturb you, but we’ve picked up a Michael Doonan and a Lee Chambers at Fleet Services. Both names are flagged up as being of interest to the Bella Elliott case. Are they known to you?’

  Sparkes swallowed hard. ‘Both. Bloody hell, we might have expected Chambers to resurface somewhere. But Mike Doonan? Are you sure? We understood he was too disabled to leave his flat.’

  ‘Well, he’s managed to get to the Services to buy some revolting pictures, Sir. We’ve arrested five men for dealing in illegal pornographic images.’

  ‘Where are you taking them?’

  ‘Your gaff. We’ll be there in about thirty minutes.’

  Sparkes sat at his desk, trying to process the information and its implications. Doonan, not Taylor? Stricken by the sickening thought that he had been chasing the wrong man for more than three years, he replayed the interview at Doonan’s flat, re-evaluating every word the driver had uttered. What had he missed?

  Had he missed Bella?

  The minutes ticked by on the wall clock as he wrestled with the fear of knowing and the burning need to know, until a voice outside his door brought him out of his paralysis. He jumped up and ran down the stairs to the Forensics lab.

  ‘Salmond, Fry, we’ve got Mike Doonan being brought in on extreme pornography charges. He was buying from Lee Chambers’ car boot sale at Fleet Services.’

  The two officers gaped at him.

  ‘What? The driver crippled with a bad back?’ Salmond said.

  ‘Not as immobilized as he says, apparently,’ Sparkes said, all business now. ‘Let’s pull up the CCTV from Fleet Services on the day Bella was taken.’

  Everyone looked grave as the technicians began the online search, and the mounting tension chased Sparkes into the corridor. He was looking for Ian Matthews’ number when Salmond put her head round the door. ‘You’d better come and look, Sir.’

  Sparkes sat in front of the grainy image on the screen.

  ‘It’s him. He’s there at the boot of Chambers’ car, picking through the magazines. Bending over. Back obviously feeling a lot better,’ Salmond said.

  ‘Date, Salmond? Was he there on the day Bella went?’

  Zara Salmond paused. ‘Yes, it’s the day she was taken.’ Sparkes almost rose out of his chair, but his sergeant put up a warning hand. ‘But it rules him out of our investigation.’

  ‘What do you mean? We’ve got Doonan in the area of the abduction, lying to us about his movements and the extent of his disability and buying extreme pornography on the route home.’

  ‘Yes, but he was recorded on film doing a deal with Chambers while Bella was being snatched. 15.02. The times don’t add up – he can’t have taken her.’

  Sparkes closed his eyes, hoping the relief didn’t show on his face.

  ‘OK, good work to pin it down. On we go,’ he said without raising his eyelids.

  Back in the privacy of his office, he slammed his fist down on his desk, then went for a walk outside to clear his head.

  When he returned, he went back to Day One and his gut feelings about the case. They – he – had always treated Bella’s abduction as an opportunistic crime. The kidnapper saw the
child and lifted her. Nothing else had made sense. No link had been found between Dawn and Taylor and, once Stan Spencer’s invented long-haired man had been discounted, there had been no reports of anyone hanging around the street or acting suspiciously in the area before Bella vanished. No flashers or sexual crimes reported.

  And there had been no real pattern of behaviour for a predator to follow. The child went to and from nursery with Dawn, but not every day, and she only played outside occasionally. If someone had planned to take her, they would’ve gone in at night when they knew where she was at a given time. No one would have sat in a residential street on the off-chance that she might come out to play. He would’ve been spotted.

  The police case was that the child had been taken in a twenty-five-minute, random window of opportunity. At the time, on the evidence in front of them, they’d been right to discount a planned kidnap.

  But, in the cold light of day, three and a half years later, Sparkes thought that maybe they’d been too quick to rule it out and he suddenly wanted to revisit that possibility.

  ‘I’m going down to the control room,’ he told Salmond. ‘To pull in a favour.’

  Russell Lynes, his closest friend in the force – a bloke he’d joined up with – was on duty.

  ‘Hello, Russ, fancy a coffee?’

  They sat in the canteen, stirring the brown liquid in front of them with little intention of drinking it.

  ‘How are you holding up, Bob?’

  ‘All right. Being back to some real work makes a big difference. And this new lead’s giving me something to concentrate on.’

  ‘Hmm. It made you ill last time, Bob. Just be careful.’

  ‘I will. I wasn’t ill, Russ. Just tired. Look, I want to look at one thing I may have missed first time.’